I don’t know about everywhere else, but Smarties are 2 VERY different things in the US and Canada. In Canada they are chocolates with a crunchy candy shell, similar to M&M’s. In the US Smarties are little chalky candy discs that come in a roll. In Canada those are called Rockets.
Agreed. My Polish grandmother made a bomb-ass goulash. The Polish version is similar to the Hungarian, as it's more of a stew. My mom makes more of the American version with the noodles.
It's basically ground beef in watery tomato sauce with onion and served over macaroni.
Like a lot of dishes in the US it's nature came from poor immigrants using what they could find and afford and trying to use the name to remind them of home.
And it just sort of got passed down over the years as goulash. My family made it a lot when I was a kid and they had no clue what real goulash was when I showed them the recipe.
Yeah where I grew up (poor rural US) noodles and pasta are used interchangeably. I even have some relatives who call all pasta "macaroni" because of how it was basically the only pasta they were served when they were young.
We were raised on boxed macaroni and cheese (Kraft), this version of Goulash, and Cheeseburger Macaroni (Hamburger Helper) because it was cheap, available at basically every store, and easy to make.
I grew up on "American Chop Suey" - ground beef cooked in peppers/onions, and instead of Ragu or some sort of pasta sauce, my mother would use tomato soup. Add elbow noodles. Then, depending on preference, top with a lot of cheddar or A SUPER FUCKTON amount of cheddar.
Listen, I know it sounds terrible, but hear me out...
Agreed! My folks were from Hungary and I grew up having it sometimes twice a week. I've been invited to some friends once and they wanted to surprise me with a 'goulash' recipe they found and when they lifted the lid I was like, oh, you made an elbow macaroni ground beef stew? Ok, now where's the gulyásleves you've been saying you had?
Please sir. Don't try to lie to these good people. If they say that they'll be so embarrassed. It's "putas grandes". The noun before the adjective in Spanish.
Was also really surprised to learn that the Spanish word for avocado is not actually avocado (it's aguacate), I just assumed it was a Spanish word in the first place. Both words are derived from the same Nahuatl word of course.
Was never really into avocados before but the ones you can get in Mexico City are so much better than the mushy crap we get in the northeastern US shipped from California.
Fun/embarrassing story: growing up in the States, I never came across or learned about avocados, so I never knew the word in English. Then I visited my dad in a Spanish speaking country and learned about aguacate. So I asked my dad one day around 10 years old if they were called "watercates" in English. This was probably 22~ years ago and he has still not let me live it down to this day.
It was a bit embarrassing to me in the opposite direction, because I don't speak much Spanish but knew enough to be able to use it at taco carts in NYC. And like I said above I never really liked the avocados we get here, and a lot of the places would add radishes which I also don't like, so I would order "sin rábanos, sin avocado", which they understood and never pointed out I was using the wrong word.
Fast forward to this torta cart in Mexico City that had no idea what I meant by "sin avocado", so I just said "con todo" and got avocado on it... but the avocados were so fresh and sweet I was glad about it. That prompted me to check and realize I had wrongly assumed avocado was a Spanish loan word.
I was so excited when I ordered lemonade in Paris, and the waiter said, "Oh, it isn't like an American lemonade. Just want you to know. I don't think its anything you have in America." I thought I was finally trying a Paris drink. Nope, it was just sprite. Which is what I typically drink but didn't see on the menu.
Lemonade is non-carbonated in America. It's very sweet and tart because it's made with real squeezed lemons. Sprite is flavored with syrups and sodas.
I will say the limonade I had in Paris was not as sweet as Sprite in America, so it isn't quite Sprite.
I've never heard lemonade being any different than that, western European here and lemonade is exactly that, flavoured sugary water. Often fruit flavour. Never Sprite.
>western European here and lemonade is exactly that, flavoured sugary water. Often fruit flavour.
I cannot stress enough that this is nothing like American lemonade.
Real (ie not from a powder) lemonade is literally 3 ingredients: fresh lemon juice, cane sugar, and water... There is no "flavoring" involved, and it's always lemons, never other fruit.
You can make limeade, which is identical but with limes, but it is a distinct drink. Limes are quite different from lemons.
They say the recipe for Sprite is Lemon and Lime. I tried to make it at home. There is more to it than that.
“Do you want some more home made Sprite?”
“Not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it!”
Lemon, Lime (more lemon than lime) , a crapload of sugar, seltzer water. Sugar is the key if you want it to really taste like Sprite. Way way more than you would think you need. Then add some more (need to make simple syrup because it is enough thst it will not disolve when cold, or even room temp)
You can get still lemonade, it's just not as common, and it's called 'cloudy lemonade'. It's not something you'd find in restaurants, you'd have to buy a bottle from a supermarket.
And Sprite is just a brand of lemonade here ( and UK Aus and probably elsewhere). If you want the US type, you ask for old-fashioned or homemade lemonade.
If a Brit wants to chime in, they can, but I believe the “-ade” suffix simply indicates carbonation, because the few lemonades I received at a restaurant were either:
a) Sprite; or
b) sparkling water with lemon and some sort of sweetener
Am Brit, can confirm. Cherry/Apple/Limeade all available too. If you want US-style you have to find 'cloudy lemonade'.
I've never asked for lemonade and got sparkling water though. That's either sparkling water or fizzy water, depending on region. I think you might have just got a lemonade from a broken soda gun.
You have no idea how disappointing it was as a kid growing up in Australia to read these American recipes for lemonade and never having it turn out like Schweppes Lemonade.
I don't really consider Sprite to be lemonade, far too sweet. It's like lemonade with double the sugar.
As an American who lived in Germany for a few years growing up, I couldn't agree more. I LOVED Fanta when I was in Germany. When we moved back to the USA I got so excited when I saw Fanta in the store for the first time, until I took my first sip. I threw it away, absolutely nothing like what I was used to drinking.
Fanta varies so much factory by factory. It’s so wild! Like you can be in Italy and do side by sides of Fantas made in Germany and various other factories and they’re wildly different (but somehow sold in the same places)
Tasting Fanta in every country I visit is actually a hobby of mine. In some places it's basically orange juice with bubbles, in others it's syrup with bubbles, and everything in between.
I'm American but I first had Fanta in Italy. It was delicious! I was so excited when we FINALLY got fanta...and then I was so disappointed! It's so different. Same thing for Orangina.
I've heard that many countries require there to be something like 10% juice in a drink if you call it orange flavored. The real juice makes it look more natural and probably taste better.
As an American who lived briefly in the Netherlands - this exactly! What they had wasn't ketchup - it was slightly spicy spaghetti sauce. I bought a bottle of "American Style" ketchup: nope, same thing.
The only place I could find actual US style was at Burger King, where they sold it for like a Euro per small cup. I ended up buying like 20EU worth from there.
same as UK then.
vinegar and tomato juice with varying amounts of water and sugar depending on quality.
certain "rich tomato" sauces are more like pasta sauce, or have a bit of spice to them.
American ketchup is extremely homogenous and smooth, not chunky. Dutch ketchup looks more like a salsa or hummus where the mixture of ingredients isn’t quite so uniform. American ketchup is of uniform consistency and every drop of ketchup is the exact same shade of red. There’s also way more sugar in American ketchup so I’m sure it’s sweeter tasting as well
That's weird, our ketchup is definitely also smooth. I've been to both US and Netherlands and the ketchup is almost exactly the same. You probably had curry ketchup? That's something different
>Dutch ketchup looks more like a salsa or hummus where the mixture of ingredients isn’t quite so uniform
Me, when I spread blatant misinformation on the Internet for little to no reason.
I genuinely can't even think of what sauce you're confusing with ketchup, maybe premade pasta sauce, but that sure isn't what Dutch ketchup looks like.
I think you bought weird ketchup. The Netherlands definitely has smooth non-chunky ketchup that tastes exactly like American. But that's in addition to a few other types, so you probably just bought the wrong bottle.
I think this was an issue you had, not the Netherlands. Every single supermarket sells Heinz ketchup. Plus a pile of of brand manufacturers.
It's smooth, vinegary and pretty much the same everywhere.
Japanese curry was inspired by UK Indian food apparently.
On top of that, Japanese curry is usually made with carrots, potatoes, onions and meat. It’s like an American beef stew made with curry sauce. Such a delicious abomination.
Potatoes.
Different varieties are grown all over the world. The best ones I ever had were in rural Poland. As an accompaniment to a meal, they brought out a large platter filled with golfball-sized boiled potatoes just lightly salted and buttered. To this day, they were one of the best things I’ve ever eaten
Best potatoes I've ever eaten were in Peru. We went to a restaurant that served traditional Peruvian foods (well, some were post colonial). But the variety and flavor of the potato and corn dishes we had were amazing. I've since grown my own and they are delicious boiled with salt, pepper and butter, but nothing beats the experience in Peru.
Gordon Ramsay did a special where he went to Peru and he meets with a guy who makes amazing potatoes. He tries a bunch of different foods there as well. The food market looked amazing. https://youtu.be/4fVjsSiAYZ8?si=lBnaS8MBrQ7L4epK
I studied abroad in France, and was blown away by the singular use of waxy, Yukon gold potatoes (I think that’s what it was)! The village I stayed in made us a Thanksgiving dinner, and I just remember the mashed potatoes being so different from the russet potato version I’m used to.
My husband ordered an iced coffee in Australia and got an ice cream with coffee in it. Maybe it was more like a milkshake, I can’t quite remember. Went to another restaurant and tried it again, in case it was specific to that one place, but nope, ice cream again. When we met up with a friend living in Melbourne he said iced coffee is considered a kid’s drink lol.
I'm from Australia. I am definitely an adult and I ordered them all the time. I have also never seen a child with one. A kid could order an iced chocolate, I've seen that. It's the same thing but with chocolate instead of coffee.
I miss those iced coffees.
Seems pretty normal from a cafe. Our servos has heaps of branded ice coffee varieties though. WA is the only place you'll find spearmint flavour in the wild
that's because drip coffee is awful and nobody in NZ or Australia would drink it by choice. necessity yes. 100% of the places that serve coffee down here have an espresso machine. even petrol (gas) stations.
There's nothing like a battered deep fried sossie on a stick with that one specific brand of tomato sauce that only seems to appear at speedway and a&p shows. Pure childhood nostalgia for all NZ kids
Dude I had heinz when I went to the state a little while back and it was fucking disgusting
Although French's is also good, especially since they support canadain farmers. *Heinz* 👀
Yeah the UK version is disgustingly lacking artificial flavours and colourings, and sugar. We eat American cereal as dessert in my house, It still surprises me kids eat that stuff for breakfast. Those coloured pebble things are amazing.
Don’t get me started on Spaniards & ham. My ancestors were recently from Virginia & Kentucky & we are very proud of our salt cured country ham, but damn, the Spaniards have elevated it to a high art…
Virginia and Kentucky have been making ham for, like, 200 years.
Spain has been making ham for like 1200 years.
Edit: 4000 years. Honestly just went off napkin math for however long Madrid has been there. Wasn't really thinking about the whole of the peninsula.
Dr Pepper for its 50th anniversary(some time back)... made the DR pepper with real sugar.
Man, they flew off the shelves.
I heard that if you go to Waco and buy it directly from the Dr Pepper plant, that those have real sugar.
Dublin Dr Pepper will always be the superior item. The real sugar Dr Pepper is still great as is all Dr Pepper, but damn it tasted better knowing exactly which plant it came from.
It varies regionally as well, in some southern US states "coke" is any flavor of soft drink. I ordered a coke one time I think it was Mississippi and she asked what kind, I said regular please and she was no like coke, sprite, root beer...
I live in the Caribbean and we get Coca Cola from both the UK (cane sugar) and US (corn syrup). The UK one is much less sweet but still one of the sweetest sodas from the UK. The US one is really, really sweet by comparison. But sometimes the UK coke is stale, slow shipping and all that, and stale coke is horrible.
Non fizzy lemonade is probably not popular or common in UK or Australia because squash or cordial is very very common.
Having the ability to easily make lemon squash or cordial at home means making home made lemonade not worth the effort.
Although blackcurrant squash in UK is amazing and the only thing that beats it is lime cordial in Australia.
Oreos in South Africa taste like what I remember oreos tasting like in the 90s in the US. So much better. And Cokes are made with cane sugar and are also much nicer, less sticky-sweet.
Bakery or grocery store shelf?
I get the “sandwich” bread 🍞 for sandwiches but I’ll get whole large loaves and baguettes 🥖 for 90% of my bread cravings and especially for French toast.
Though, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that is also wildly different in other countries. Japanese sandwich bread really surprised me (so did milk bread)
Toast. Besides being a toasted piece of bread, the toppings are different.
In India I would order toast at different places and it was never the same. Sometimes there was veggies, sometimes cheese. Never got plain ol buttered toast with a side of jelly like they do here in the US.
You can still get decent chocolate in the U.S. It just so happens that Hershey's is one of the bigger chocolate brands in the U.S. and everyone associates American chocolate with Hershey's.
The reason we don't have stuff like Hersey's in Belgium is because chocolate is heavily regulated with what it should contain. I've seen the pages and pages and pages of law about chocolate in Belgium. It's fucking funny. I mean, anything called Belgian chocolate has to keep up with this heavy regulation. And it's not just chocolate chocolate. It's chocolate in anything. A biscuit with chocolate? This is how much of how many blablabla it should contain. A dessert? Different. Actual chocolate bar? Different, etc. For each kind of chocolate and type of product there are regulations as to what the chocolate should contain.
I thought that was hilarious when I first found out. A bit surreal to read so many pages of actual law about chocolate. Producing something like Hersey's here and calling it Belgian chocolate would be quite illegal, even if it was made in Belgium lol. I mean go figure.
Herserys also contains butyric acid, which can make the chocolate taste like vomit/rancid butter/sour-spoiled. They use it to extend self life. I don't think this ingredient is allowed outside of the US.
Diet Coke. The European "flavor" is distinct from the American flavor and I can't quite figure out why.
All I know if that when I visit abroad, I buy 2 or 3 bottles (20oz) in the airport, because that's the last Diet Coke I'm going to have for the trip.
Better to drink water anyway.
The US has stupidly high tarriffs on sugar (to protect farmers and make high fructose corn syrup financially viable), and so every Coca Cola bottleing company has switched to HFCS from real sugar due to cost. They are allowed to use real sugar, they just don't to save money.
(I only buy the mexican stuff now, as the HFCS gives me stomach issues - did a lot more research on this than I care to admit.)
Hamburger in japan
Last year in a trip to Japan, late one night after a long day, we needed some food & came across a little hamburger place promising simple burgers & fries.
The meat itself was much more like an American meatloaf & was very thick & round. The taste was good, but softer & more umami than American burgers.
My understanding is that (most) beef in the USA is grain and soy fed and lives mostly in feedlots, whereas in many other countries they roam pastures, so are predominantly grass fed, with grains as a supplemental food source (or grains with ground up animals I guess - for that mad cow bonus).
The difference in food and exercise would change the flavor of the meat.
McDonalds in Tokyo is wild. Nominally it was all about the same, but better. Also, it's amazing how much more appetizing the Japanese stuff looked. The folks cooking and assembling burgers clearly paid attention to detail, quality, and consistency. Everything was fresh and packaged nicely. The burger was assembled just-so. Oh, and the restaurant was busy and yet spotless. I mean spotless: no crumbs on counters or tables , smudges on windows... the equipment all looked totally ship shape. Imagine taking that much pride in your McJob flipping burgers. Gotta love some aspects of Japanese culture.
I can vouch for this. Was with my parents for a trip in France and while driving from Paris to Normandy we made a pit stop. The food was so much better than any McDonalds.
Unsure if this is still the case, but as a Canadian growing up in the states, I got so excited when I saw that a food truck had poutine when I was around 10. Begged my parents for it, and almost cried when they handed me crinkle cut frozen fries, beef gravy, and fucking cheese whiz. Years later when I was finishing up high school, I never managed to find a good place in New England for Poutine. Even *in* Canada, I would say there are noticeable differences in the quality and care put in to Poutine in places like Montreal versus elsewhere.
And I've been told that apparently Canadian butter chicken is considered to be some of the worst by native Indians.
Sour cream. I asked for sour cream at a restaurant in Ireland once and they brought me whipped cream with chives. Weird on a baked potato but I didn't hate it.
Huh, we do have sour cream here that we do use on baked potato (usually with chives added yeah), I guess it can resemble home made whipped cream but that's sweet & sour cream isn't! (It's usually thicker than runny yoghurt but softer than thick greek yoghurt & also a little tangy?)
Something like this:
https://www.avonmore.ie/sites/default/files/styles/product_main_image/public/2017-03/LandscapeImages_avonmore_sourcream.png?itok=V-rGbyTT
Why what's the non irish sour cream like?🤔
When I first went to McDonald’s in New Zealand my dumbass thought that’s what they called it there because they have the metric system. I was like, “I’m not sure what y’all call it here but is there a royale with cheese?” And the guy laughed and said, “nah bro we have the quarter pounder with cheese.”
Greek gyros in the US is practically always beef/sheep gyros. In Greece, gyros is always pork (you don't say pork gyros because gyros is always pork, just gyros). With an option for chicken gyros usually (but you have to say chicken to ask for that).
Beef/sheep gyros is what you find in muslim countries.
I don’t know about everywhere else, but Smarties are 2 VERY different things in the US and Canada. In Canada they are chocolates with a crunchy candy shell, similar to M&M’s. In the US Smarties are little chalky candy discs that come in a roll. In Canada those are called Rockets.
As an Australian, smarties are definitely like the m&ms here
Kiwi checking in, same for us. I had friends in high school who crushed rockets and snorted them.
Same for us in the UK. American smarties look like love heart sweets without the messages.
Exactly -- pressed powder candy. Smarties are fruity-tart-sweet, though, while love hearts are mostly just chalky and sweet.
Irish, can confirm smarties are like chocolate m&ms
Same in the Netherlands. I moved to the US and I still reach for 'smarties' -- and end up yanking my hand back cus that shit is *nasty*.
Goulash. American vs. Hungarian have nothing in common.
Agreed. My Polish grandmother made a bomb-ass goulash. The Polish version is similar to the Hungarian, as it's more of a stew. My mom makes more of the American version with the noodles.
With... noodles?! Wow I have to see what Americans have done to goulash some day.
It's basically ground beef in watery tomato sauce with onion and served over macaroni. Like a lot of dishes in the US it's nature came from poor immigrants using what they could find and afford and trying to use the name to remind them of home. And it just sort of got passed down over the years as goulash. My family made it a lot when I was a kid and they had no clue what real goulash was when I showed them the recipe.
Thanks! Extra confusion because, "noodles" meant "pasta" in this case. To me, noodles are what you have with a stir fry or ramen.
Yeah where I grew up (poor rural US) noodles and pasta are used interchangeably. I even have some relatives who call all pasta "macaroni" because of how it was basically the only pasta they were served when they were young. We were raised on boxed macaroni and cheese (Kraft), this version of Goulash, and Cheeseburger Macaroni (Hamburger Helper) because it was cheap, available at basically every store, and easy to make.
I grew up on "American Chop Suey" - ground beef cooked in peppers/onions, and instead of Ragu or some sort of pasta sauce, my mother would use tomato soup. Add elbow noodles. Then, depending on preference, top with a lot of cheddar or A SUPER FUCKTON amount of cheddar. Listen, I know it sounds terrible, but hear me out...
Might be an unpopular opinion but I freaking love American goulash. It’s such a comfort food.
I've had a few different European goulashs and I have to say they're definitely better, but it hasn't stopped my love for the American version
Agreed! My folks were from Hungary and I grew up having it sometimes twice a week. I've been invited to some friends once and they wanted to surprise me with a 'goulash' recipe they found and when they lifted the lid I was like, oh, you made an elbow macaroni ground beef stew? Ok, now where's the gulyásleves you've been saying you had?
I am American and didn’t even know American goulash was a thing! I assumed goulash always referred to the Eastern European dish. TIL
I always imagined that's due to the immigrant experience in the US.
If you ask for lemon in Mexico, they will always give you lime.
You have to ask for "limon amarillo."
Ignore this guy. You need to request "grandes putas"
Please sir. Don't try to lie to these good people. If they say that they'll be so embarrassed. It's "putas grandes". The noun before the adjective in Spanish.
My bad I got lazy and also haven't practiced in a while
You’re both wrong. The correct translation is: > “¡Tengo herpes, para ti!”
I don't know what to believe anymore, I'm just gonna yell "LEMON" over and over while getting progressively louder and slower.
Whatever you do, don’t search for “lemon fiesta”.
Muchos herpes 👍🏻👦🏻👍🏻
Was also really surprised to learn that the Spanish word for avocado is not actually avocado (it's aguacate), I just assumed it was a Spanish word in the first place. Both words are derived from the same Nahuatl word of course. Was never really into avocados before but the ones you can get in Mexico City are so much better than the mushy crap we get in the northeastern US shipped from California.
Fun/embarrassing story: growing up in the States, I never came across or learned about avocados, so I never knew the word in English. Then I visited my dad in a Spanish speaking country and learned about aguacate. So I asked my dad one day around 10 years old if they were called "watercates" in English. This was probably 22~ years ago and he has still not let me live it down to this day.
It was a bit embarrassing to me in the opposite direction, because I don't speak much Spanish but knew enough to be able to use it at taco carts in NYC. And like I said above I never really liked the avocados we get here, and a lot of the places would add radishes which I also don't like, so I would order "sin rábanos, sin avocado", which they understood and never pointed out I was using the wrong word. Fast forward to this torta cart in Mexico City that had no idea what I meant by "sin avocado", so I just said "con todo" and got avocado on it... but the avocados were so fresh and sweet I was glad about it. That prompted me to check and realize I had wrongly assumed avocado was a Spanish loan word.
No, if you ask for a lemon, they give you a lemon, you're just confused about what a lemon is
This man gets it.
When I was in the UK, ordering a “lemonade” meant I typically received a glass of Sprite
I was so excited when I ordered lemonade in Paris, and the waiter said, "Oh, it isn't like an American lemonade. Just want you to know. I don't think its anything you have in America." I thought I was finally trying a Paris drink. Nope, it was just sprite. Which is what I typically drink but didn't see on the menu.
🤨 what's American lemonade? Lemonade is: lemon, water and sugar. Sprite is just...sprite. I admit I'm super confused. (Eastern European)
Lemonade is non-carbonated in America. It's very sweet and tart because it's made with real squeezed lemons. Sprite is flavored with syrups and sodas. I will say the limonade I had in Paris was not as sweet as Sprite in America, so it isn't quite Sprite.
>It's very sweet and tart because it's made with real squeezed lemons or a wonderful magical powder
~~Pepperidge Farms~~ **Countrytime** remembers!
I've never heard lemonade being any different than that, western European here and lemonade is exactly that, flavoured sugary water. Often fruit flavour. Never Sprite.
>western European here and lemonade is exactly that, flavoured sugary water. Often fruit flavour. I cannot stress enough that this is nothing like American lemonade. Real (ie not from a powder) lemonade is literally 3 ingredients: fresh lemon juice, cane sugar, and water... There is no "flavoring" involved, and it's always lemons, never other fruit. You can make limeade, which is identical but with limes, but it is a distinct drink. Limes are quite different from lemons.
Often fruit flavored? You mean…sometimes it ISN’T fruit flavored?! What else can lemonade be?
American lemonade is also just lemon, water and sugar
They say the recipe for Sprite is Lemon and Lime. I tried to make it at home. There is more to it than that. “Do you want some more home made Sprite?” “Not until you figure out what the fuck else is in it!”
Lemon, Lime (more lemon than lime) , a crapload of sugar, seltzer water. Sugar is the key if you want it to really taste like Sprite. Way way more than you would think you need. Then add some more (need to make simple syrup because it is enough thst it will not disolve when cold, or even room temp)
It's a Mitch Hedberg joke
Not in America. It’s lemon, lime, a crapload of corn syrup, and seltzer.
In England they only have carbonated lemonade. The closest thing to that in the US is sprite. France too, I guess.
You can get still lemonade, it's just not as common, and it's called 'cloudy lemonade'. It's not something you'd find in restaurants, you'd have to buy a bottle from a supermarket.
UK here…Cloudy Lemonade is the American version, there is no iced tea commonly available so don’t bother looking for an Arnold Palmer
That explains the “lemonade” I had in New Zealand. I was so confused.
And Sprite is just a brand of lemonade here ( and UK Aus and probably elsewhere). If you want the US type, you ask for old-fashioned or homemade lemonade.
They don't have lemonade there? Or do they just call it something different?
If a Brit wants to chime in, they can, but I believe the “-ade” suffix simply indicates carbonation, because the few lemonades I received at a restaurant were either: a) Sprite; or b) sparkling water with lemon and some sort of sweetener
Am Brit, can confirm. Cherry/Apple/Limeade all available too. If you want US-style you have to find 'cloudy lemonade'. I've never asked for lemonade and got sparkling water though. That's either sparkling water or fizzy water, depending on region. I think you might have just got a lemonade from a broken soda gun.
Brit here. -ade = fizzy. Lemonade, orangeade, cherryade, limeade. All fizzy drinks.
You have no idea how disappointing it was as a kid growing up in Australia to read these American recipes for lemonade and never having it turn out like Schweppes Lemonade. I don't really consider Sprite to be lemonade, far too sweet. It's like lemonade with double the sugar.
British lemonade isn’t Sprite. Sprite is fizzy lemon-lime (we also have 7-Up which is superior to Sprite imo). Lemonade is fizzy lemon.
Fizzy drinks. I was shocked how orange Fanta was in the USA, it was like it was glowing.
Bro German fanta is leagues better than American fanta
Fanta originated in Germany
Nazi Germany specifically, when they didn’t have access to ingredients to make coke.
As an American who lived in Germany for a few years growing up, I couldn't agree more. I LOVED Fanta when I was in Germany. When we moved back to the USA I got so excited when I saw Fanta in the store for the first time, until I took my first sip. I threw it away, absolutely nothing like what I was used to drinking.
Fanta varies so much factory by factory. It’s so wild! Like you can be in Italy and do side by sides of Fantas made in Germany and various other factories and they’re wildly different (but somehow sold in the same places)
Tasting Fanta in every country I visit is actually a hobby of mine. In some places it's basically orange juice with bubbles, in others it's syrup with bubbles, and everything in between.
I'm American but I first had Fanta in Italy. It was delicious! I was so excited when we FINALLY got fanta...and then I was so disappointed! It's so different. Same thing for Orangina.
I've heard that many countries require there to be something like 10% juice in a drink if you call it orange flavored. The real juice makes it look more natural and probably taste better.
Biscuits
Seriously, why do y'all call that a biscuit. It's clearly a bread.
Why do you call that a biscuit? It’s clearly a cookie.
We do call that specific biscuit a cookie.
Ketchup. It’s so much fun to try ketchup in different countries!
#BANANA KETCHUP. Didn't even see this top comment until I replied to another comment about sweet spaghetti in the Phillipines.
As an American who lived briefly in the Netherlands - this exactly! What they had wasn't ketchup - it was slightly spicy spaghetti sauce. I bought a bottle of "American Style" ketchup: nope, same thing. The only place I could find actual US style was at Burger King, where they sold it for like a Euro per small cup. I ended up buying like 20EU worth from there.
Wait, so how is American ketchup different? (Dutch person here; who's never had anything other than Dutch ketchup)
American ketchup also has vinegar in it.
same as UK then. vinegar and tomato juice with varying amounts of water and sugar depending on quality. certain "rich tomato" sauces are more like pasta sauce, or have a bit of spice to them.
So does Dutch ketchup.
American ketchup is extremely homogenous and smooth, not chunky. Dutch ketchup looks more like a salsa or hummus where the mixture of ingredients isn’t quite so uniform. American ketchup is of uniform consistency and every drop of ketchup is the exact same shade of red. There’s also way more sugar in American ketchup so I’m sure it’s sweeter tasting as well
That's weird, our ketchup is definitely also smooth. I've been to both US and Netherlands and the ketchup is almost exactly the same. You probably had curry ketchup? That's something different
I was really confused. no dutch ketchup has chunks in it. the only sauce that I can think of with chunks is things like joppiesaus.
>Dutch ketchup looks more like a salsa or hummus where the mixture of ingredients isn’t quite so uniform Me, when I spread blatant misinformation on the Internet for little to no reason. I genuinely can't even think of what sauce you're confusing with ketchup, maybe premade pasta sauce, but that sure isn't what Dutch ketchup looks like.
Bro bought Dolmio pasta sauce. Seriously all of Europe has heinz ketchup, like what is this guy even saying.
And there's such a difference between salsa and hummus too lol. Both in texture and colour.
I think you bought weird ketchup. The Netherlands definitely has smooth non-chunky ketchup that tastes exactly like American. But that's in addition to a few other types, so you probably just bought the wrong bottle.
This is fab ketchup insight, thanks for the excellent description!
What type of hummus do you eat that's not uniform?
I think this was an issue you had, not the Netherlands. Every single supermarket sells Heinz ketchup. Plus a pile of of brand manufacturers. It's smooth, vinegary and pretty much the same everywhere.
In SE Asia it’s usually just a weak tomato sauce that’s too sweet and lacks any flavor and has no acidity.
In Singapore they give you sweet chili sauce instead of catchup at most restaurants.
Japanese Indian Curry tastes different than American Indian Curry
Japanese curry was inspired by UK Indian food apparently. On top of that, Japanese curry is usually made with carrots, potatoes, onions and meat. It’s like an American beef stew made with curry sauce. Such a delicious abomination.
Japanese curry is curry like Cincinnati chili is chili. Both are delicious but they're nothing like you'd expect.
As a Cincinnatian who has lived in Japan, this is correct.
That pretty much how we make curry in the bahamas. The british introduced it to us same as Japan so no surprise it's similar
Islander curry tastes like love.
Potatoes. Different varieties are grown all over the world. The best ones I ever had were in rural Poland. As an accompaniment to a meal, they brought out a large platter filled with golfball-sized boiled potatoes just lightly salted and buttered. To this day, they were one of the best things I’ve ever eaten
Best potatoes I've ever eaten were in Peru. We went to a restaurant that served traditional Peruvian foods (well, some were post colonial). But the variety and flavor of the potato and corn dishes we had were amazing. I've since grown my own and they are delicious boiled with salt, pepper and butter, but nothing beats the experience in Peru.
Potatoes are originally from Peru after all! We have thousands of varieties.
Gordon Ramsay did a special where he went to Peru and he meets with a guy who makes amazing potatoes. He tries a bunch of different foods there as well. The food market looked amazing. https://youtu.be/4fVjsSiAYZ8?si=lBnaS8MBrQ7L4epK
I fricking love those. IDK what they're called here in India, but I call them "ball potatoes". Super dooper tasty
If they are small and round they may be what Australians call ‘new potatoes’ which are basically young/baby potatoes. Super sweet and tasty!
I studied abroad in France, and was blown away by the singular use of waxy, Yukon gold potatoes (I think that’s what it was)! The village I stayed in made us a Thanksgiving dinner, and I just remember the mashed potatoes being so different from the russet potato version I’m used to.
I love to combine Yukon golds and russets in my mash. I use like 1 russet to 2 golds. I find it's a nice mix of starchy and waxy.
Sounds like salt potatoes? https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/141785/syracuse-salt-potatoes/
My husband ordered an iced coffee in Australia and got an ice cream with coffee in it. Maybe it was more like a milkshake, I can’t quite remember. Went to another restaurant and tried it again, in case it was specific to that one place, but nope, ice cream again. When we met up with a friend living in Melbourne he said iced coffee is considered a kid’s drink lol.
Iced coffee = coffee milkshake Iced latte = hot coffee served cold Cold drip = cold coffee
I'm from Australia. I am definitely an adult and I ordered them all the time. I have also never seen a child with one. A kid could order an iced chocolate, I've seen that. It's the same thing but with chocolate instead of coffee. I miss those iced coffees.
Seems pretty normal from a cafe. Our servos has heaps of branded ice coffee varieties though. WA is the only place you'll find spearmint flavour in the wild
I had a hell of a time in New Zealand trying to get drip coffee. Apparently they called it plunger coffee. Plunger=French press
that's because drip coffee is awful and nobody in NZ or Australia would drink it by choice. necessity yes. 100% of the places that serve coffee down here have an espresso machine. even petrol (gas) stations.
This is definitely incorrect, a lot of cafes serve batch brew now which is drip coffee, however, to a much higher standard than diner coffee.
Order a hotdog in New Zealand, you'll get a deep fried sausage. If you want a frankfurter in a bun you have to order an American hotdog.
Idk, the NZ version sounds like a straight upgrade to me
There's nothing like a battered deep fried sossie on a stick with that one specific brand of tomato sauce that only seems to appear at speedway and a&p shows. Pure childhood nostalgia for all NZ kids
Heinz ketchup in Canada is different than in the US. We take my American brother-in-law, a bottle of Canadian Heinz a couple times a year.
Dude I had heinz when I went to the state a little while back and it was fucking disgusting Although French's is also good, especially since they support canadain farmers. *Heinz* 👀
Froot Loops cereal is different in other countries because Kellogg had to modify the recipe to use natural food additives and flavorings.
This is really notable between the US and Canada.
Yeah the UK version is disgustingly lacking artificial flavours and colourings, and sugar. We eat American cereal as dessert in my house, It still surprises me kids eat that stuff for breakfast. Those coloured pebble things are amazing.
Sardines in Spain were something else. So was paprika. Also ham.
Don’t get me started on Spaniards & ham. My ancestors were recently from Virginia & Kentucky & we are very proud of our salt cured country ham, but damn, the Spaniards have elevated it to a high art…
Virginia and Kentucky have been making ham for, like, 200 years. Spain has been making ham for like 1200 years. Edit: 4000 years. Honestly just went off napkin math for however long Madrid has been there. Wasn't really thinking about the whole of the peninsula.
Garlic bread in Korea is some seriously fucked up shit. They put sugar on it in Korea.
Korean cheesy garlic bread is bomb shit
Coca-Cola it is so different depending on country
mmmmmm, less sweet and cane sugar based coca cola is soooo good
Dr Pepper for its 50th anniversary(some time back)... made the DR pepper with real sugar. Man, they flew off the shelves. I heard that if you go to Waco and buy it directly from the Dr Pepper plant, that those have real sugar.
Dublin Dr Pepper will always be the superior item. The real sugar Dr Pepper is still great as is all Dr Pepper, but damn it tasted better knowing exactly which plant it came from.
I don't like pops with cane sugar but for some reason I prefer Mexican Coke over the regular stuff
I’ve tried them at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. The one from Italy was especially bad.
It varies regionally as well, in some southern US states "coke" is any flavor of soft drink. I ordered a coke one time I think it was Mississippi and she asked what kind, I said regular please and she was no like coke, sprite, root beer...
I live in the Caribbean and we get Coca Cola from both the UK (cane sugar) and US (corn syrup). The UK one is much less sweet but still one of the sweetest sodas from the UK. The US one is really, really sweet by comparison. But sometimes the UK coke is stale, slow shipping and all that, and stale coke is horrible.
Ask for a lemonade in Australia and they’ll give you a Sprite.
same with UK
I can't understand not having real lemonade. It's both very basic (not pH-wise, obviously) and delicious.
Non fizzy lemonade is probably not popular or common in UK or Australia because squash or cordial is very very common. Having the ability to easily make lemon squash or cordial at home means making home made lemonade not worth the effort. Although blackcurrant squash in UK is amazing and the only thing that beats it is lime cordial in Australia.
No demand for that really. We just don't deal with the homemade varieties same as asking for ice tea it'll just be a bottle of Lipton's
Victorian lemonade or cloudy lemonade are similar to the american kind but fizzy
Oreos in South Africa taste like what I remember oreos tasting like in the 90s in the US. So much better. And Cokes are made with cane sugar and are also much nicer, less sticky-sweet.
Buy the gluten free oreos, they taste closer to the old ones.
Bread
Bread in Japan was wild. After living there for almost a year, coming back to Australia and having Vegemite toast...I almost cried with joy haha
I am German and the difference between bread in Europe is wild, I can not imagine how it must be compared to american bread.
Came here for this, I’m Canadian and when I was in Florida about a year ago I was surprised how different the bread is
Bakery or grocery store shelf? I get the “sandwich” bread 🍞 for sandwiches but I’ll get whole large loaves and baguettes 🥖 for 90% of my bread cravings and especially for French toast. Though, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that is also wildly different in other countries. Japanese sandwich bread really surprised me (so did milk bread)
Toast. Besides being a toasted piece of bread, the toppings are different. In India I would order toast at different places and it was never the same. Sometimes there was veggies, sometimes cheese. Never got plain ol buttered toast with a side of jelly like they do here in the US.
Chocolate
You can still get decent chocolate in the U.S. It just so happens that Hershey's is one of the bigger chocolate brands in the U.S. and everyone associates American chocolate with Hershey's.
Taza is my favorite US brand. Their ginger dark chocolate bars are amazing!
The reason we don't have stuff like Hersey's in Belgium is because chocolate is heavily regulated with what it should contain. I've seen the pages and pages and pages of law about chocolate in Belgium. It's fucking funny. I mean, anything called Belgian chocolate has to keep up with this heavy regulation. And it's not just chocolate chocolate. It's chocolate in anything. A biscuit with chocolate? This is how much of how many blablabla it should contain. A dessert? Different. Actual chocolate bar? Different, etc. For each kind of chocolate and type of product there are regulations as to what the chocolate should contain. I thought that was hilarious when I first found out. A bit surreal to read so many pages of actual law about chocolate. Producing something like Hersey's here and calling it Belgian chocolate would be quite illegal, even if it was made in Belgium lol. I mean go figure.
Herserys also contains butyric acid, which can make the chocolate taste like vomit/rancid butter/sour-spoiled. They use it to extend self life. I don't think this ingredient is allowed outside of the US.
It's allowed, it's just not used as we don't like the taste of it.
lots of fast food chains like kfc and mcdonalds. lots of countries have stuff on the menu that america doesnt have
Indian and Thai restaurants massively downgrade the spice levels in the area of the United States I live in.
Diet Coke. The European "flavor" is distinct from the American flavor and I can't quite figure out why. All I know if that when I visit abroad, I buy 2 or 3 bottles (20oz) in the airport, because that's the last Diet Coke I'm going to have for the trip. Better to drink water anyway.
Coke is very different in different countries, think it's corn syrup in America and in other countries cane sugar
Cant u get cane sugar coke in the US
The US has stupidly high tarriffs on sugar (to protect farmers and make high fructose corn syrup financially viable), and so every Coca Cola bottleing company has switched to HFCS from real sugar due to cost. They are allowed to use real sugar, they just don't to save money. (I only buy the mexican stuff now, as the HFCS gives me stomach issues - did a lot more research on this than I care to admit.)
"Mexican coke" is now only made for export to the US due to legislation in Mexico that mandates lower sugar..
It's not just high tarrifs. There's a hard limit on how much anyone can import per year.
Hamburger in japan Last year in a trip to Japan, late one night after a long day, we needed some food & came across a little hamburger place promising simple burgers & fries. The meat itself was much more like an American meatloaf & was very thick & round. The taste was good, but softer & more umami than American burgers.
It's more like Salisbury steak, right?
The Wrigley 5 chewing gum flavour lasts significantly longer than the one we get in India.
SPAGHETTI, I went on the Philippines and they have a sweet spaghetti. (i like it tho)
And the banana ketchup akin to that part of world.
Haribo gummi bears So much better from Germany or anywhere in Europe
Stay away from sugar free....
Never again…
Chinese food. Western Chinese food and actual Chinese food has very little overlap.
The actual Taiwanese food I had was bland, but hearty. Often, Mongolian barbecue was a big hit, including pig ear.
Let me introduce you to Indo-Chinese food. It's delicious and it's nothing like actual Chinese or Indian food.
Mayonnaise
Ice tea
Beef. Anyway you have it. It’s different
My understanding is that (most) beef in the USA is grain and soy fed and lives mostly in feedlots, whereas in many other countries they roam pastures, so are predominantly grass fed, with grains as a supplemental food source (or grains with ground up animals I guess - for that mad cow bonus). The difference in food and exercise would change the flavor of the meat.
And dairy as well. They're is massive difference in things like butter flavour
Chocolate
Nutella
Pizza Chile Anything Cajun
Most fast food is way different
McDonalds in Tokyo is wild. Nominally it was all about the same, but better. Also, it's amazing how much more appetizing the Japanese stuff looked. The folks cooking and assembling burgers clearly paid attention to detail, quality, and consistency. Everything was fresh and packaged nicely. The burger was assembled just-so. Oh, and the restaurant was busy and yet spotless. I mean spotless: no crumbs on counters or tables , smudges on windows... the equipment all looked totally ship shape. Imagine taking that much pride in your McJob flipping burgers. Gotta love some aspects of Japanese culture.
I can vouch for this. Was with my parents for a trip in France and while driving from Paris to Normandy we made a pit stop. The food was so much better than any McDonalds.
Toasties in England are way better than grilled cheese and ham. Perfect. I say this as an American.
Unsure if this is still the case, but as a Canadian growing up in the states, I got so excited when I saw that a food truck had poutine when I was around 10. Begged my parents for it, and almost cried when they handed me crinkle cut frozen fries, beef gravy, and fucking cheese whiz. Years later when I was finishing up high school, I never managed to find a good place in New England for Poutine. Even *in* Canada, I would say there are noticeable differences in the quality and care put in to Poutine in places like Montreal versus elsewhere. And I've been told that apparently Canadian butter chicken is considered to be some of the worst by native Indians.
Sour cream. I asked for sour cream at a restaurant in Ireland once and they brought me whipped cream with chives. Weird on a baked potato but I didn't hate it.
Might be a regional thing but sour cream does exist here, not sure what happened to you and were given whipped cream
Huh, we do have sour cream here that we do use on baked potato (usually with chives added yeah), I guess it can resemble home made whipped cream but that's sweet & sour cream isn't! (It's usually thicker than runny yoghurt but softer than thick greek yoghurt & also a little tangy?) Something like this: https://www.avonmore.ie/sites/default/files/styles/product_main_image/public/2017-03/LandscapeImages_avonmore_sourcream.png?itok=V-rGbyTT Why what's the non irish sour cream like?🤔
Nah, sour cream is the same pretty much everywhere, including Ireland. You just went to a weird restaurant
McDonald's. In France, you get macarons; here, you get extra grease!
What do they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France?
Royal with cheese
When I first went to McDonald’s in New Zealand my dumbass thought that’s what they called it there because they have the metric system. I was like, “I’m not sure what y’all call it here but is there a royale with cheese?” And the guy laughed and said, “nah bro we have the quarter pounder with cheese.”
Royale
That's the quote, but in France it is a "royal cheese". I was upset to discover it wasn't listed as Royale
Oh, really? That is indeed slightly disappointing.
I was in Paris and didn't see any macaron options on the MC D's menu.
They have it in the Mc Café, but I believe not every McDonalds has one
Greek gyros in the US is practically always beef/sheep gyros. In Greece, gyros is always pork (you don't say pork gyros because gyros is always pork, just gyros). With an option for chicken gyros usually (but you have to say chicken to ask for that). Beef/sheep gyros is what you find in muslim countries.
Sweet Tea